A Virginia state lawmaker is facing heat after a Facebook post criticizing abortion rights groups in which he called pregnant women a “child’s host.”

Republican Virginia Sen. Steve Martin edited the post on Monday to read “bearer of the child” instead after he faced flak from abortion rights activists for his comments, but he insists his words are being taken out of context.

Martin posted to his Facebook page last week that he had received a Valentine’s Day card from the Virginia Pro-Choice Coalition asking him to reconsider his position against abortion with the tagline, “Don’t break our hearts.” He criticized the card on his Facebook wall.

“If it’s your expectation that I should support such nonsense, I will be breaking your heart,” Martin wrote. “You can count on me to never get in the way of you ‘preventing’ an unintentional pregnancy.’ I’m not actually sure what that means, because if it’s ‘unintentional’ you must have been trying to prevent it. And, I don’t expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive.”

He continued: “However, once a child does exist in your womb, I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child’s host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it to remain alive.”

On Monday afternoon, that sentence was changed to: “I’m not going to assume a right to kill it just because the bearer of the child (some refer to them as mothers) doesn’t want it to remain alive.”

But Martin said Monday that the groups were twisting his words and that he was parodying their position in calling women “hosts.”

“From the beginning was playing their argument back to them. You’ll even notice the parenthetical statement that some call them mothers because I consider them mothers not hosts, so that’s not my argument that’s their argument,” Martin told POLITICO. “If you’re going to say that it’s my body, and if it’s in my body for a period of time, I can treat it how I want, then you’re the one arguing that you’re just a host.”

Martin said he changed his post, but he stands by his original words.

“Since they took that out of context, I said alright, I’ve already made it pretty clear since I said calling them mothers, I changed it to bearer of the children,” Martin said. “But I’d be happy to change it back. I think that the way in which they turned that and somehow used this as both a Valentine’s card issue and then to turn around say that I’m calling mothers and children who bear children hosts I think is a bit of twisting of the facts”

Martin has been no stranger to controversial remarks about abortion before. Last May, he defended statements from himself and lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson saying that Planned Parenthood kills more black babies than the KKK. He also supported a bill in the state Senate requiring women to have ultrasounds before getting an abortion.

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Executive Director Tarina Keene called the post a window into the “true” feelings of lawmakers.

“This is a rare glimpse into the true ideology of anti-abortion politicians and their complete disregard for women and families,” Keene said. “These callous words show an absolute lack of empathy for women who find themselves in difficult situations and having to make difficult decisions. … This is not just a case of one man putting his foot in his mouth — this is how anti-choice politicians in Virginia really feel, and how they legislate.”